Children’s Headline Indicators

Web report

Last updated:18 Sep 2018

Author: AIHW

The Children’s Headline Indicators (CHI) are a set of 19 indicators endorsed by the Australian Health Ministers' Conference, Community and Disability Services Ministers' Conference and the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee in 2008 (first reported in 2009). They are high level, measureable indicators that identify the immediate environments as particularly important to children’s health, development and wellbeing. The CHI are presented from 2006 to 2016 and are grouped into 3 broad topic areas—Health, Early learning and care and Family and community.

Cat. no: CWS 64

Findings from this report:

An estimated 0.2 per cent of children aged 0–14 years (just over 7,300) were listed as homeless in 2016

22 per cent of children were living in households with housing stress in 2016, decreasing from 26 per cent in 2011

3.1 infants per 1,000 live births died in 2016, decreasing from 4.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006

11 births per 1,000 were to teenage mothers in 2015, decreasing from 13 per 1,000 females in 2014

Homelessness

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According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), a person is considered to be homeless if they are: living in an improvised dwelling, tent or sleeping out; in supported accommodation for the homeless; staying temporarily with another household; or staying in a boarding house or other temporary lodging. The ABS definition of homelessness also includes people living in a severely overcrowded situation (i.e. those living in a residence requiring 4 or more additional bedrooms according to the Canadian National Occupancy Standard) because they do not have control of, or access to, space for social relations (ABS 2016).

In the ABS Census 2016, the national proportion of homelessness among children aged 0–14 years was 0.4%. There were negligible differences in the rates of homelessness between boys and girls (both 0.4%), children born in Australia and those born overseas (0.4% and 0.6% respectively), and between younger (0–4 years) and older children (5–14 years; 0.5% and 0.4% respectively). Indigenous children aged 0–14 years were 11 times as likely to be homeless (3.3%) than non-Indigenous children (0.3%).

The rates of homelessness of children aged 0–14 years varied across different types of households, remoteness and socioeconomic status (SES) areas. In 2016, 2.4% of children aged 0–14 years who lived in multiple family households were homeless, compared with 0.6% of children in one-parent family households and 0.1% of children in couple family households. The national proportion of homelessness for children aged 0–14 years was higher in Remote and very remote areas (5.2%) compared with Major cities (0.3%), Inner regional (0.3%) and Outer regional (0.4%) areas. Children aged 0–14 years living in the lowest SES areas were also more likely to be homeless (1.3%) than those in the highest SES areas (0.1%).

Has there been a change over time?

Between 2006 and 2016 there has been a very small decrease in the rate of homessness of children aged 0-14 years, from 0.5% to 0.4%.

The proportion of Indigenous children classified as homeless has decreased by 2.0 percentage points, from 5.3% in 2006 to 3.3% in 2016. Over the same period, the proportion of non-Indigenous children classified as homeless has remained stable at 0.3%. The proportion of homelessness for children living in multiple family households has also decreased, from 3.6% in 2006 to 2.4% in 2016, while the proportions in couple families and one-parent families have remained stable.

The proportion of homelessness for children in Remote and very remote areas has increased from 3.6% in 2006 to 5.2% in 2016, while the proportions in all other Remoteness categories have remained stable over time.

Notes

According to ABS, there was underestimation of youth homelessness (sometimes referred to as ages 12-18 years or 12-24 years) due to ‘usual address’ reporting. A usual address may be reported for 'couch surfers' either because the young person doesn't want to disclose to the people they are staying with that they are unable to go home, or the person who fills out the Census form on behalf of the young person staying with them assumes that the youth will return to their home (ABS 2012).